The Gay Lord Quex eBook

[They separate; he stands looking out upon the
leads. MISS CLARIDGE enters, preceding the
MARQUESS OF QUEX and SIR CHICHESTER FRAYNE.
LORD QUEX is forty-eight, keen-faced and bright-eyed,
faultless in dress, in manner debonair and charming.
FRAYNE is a genial wreck of about five-and-forty—­the
lean and shrivelled remnant of a once good-looking
man. His face is yellow and puckered, his hair
prematurely silvered, his moustache palpably touched-up.

My aunt—­Lady Owbridge—­has asked
me to meet her here at two o’clock. Her
ladyship is lunching at a tea-shop close by—­bunning
is a more fitting expression—­with Mrs.
Eden and Miss Eden.

SOPHY.

[Gladly.] Miss Muriel!

QUEX.

Yes, I believe Miss Muriel will place her pretty finger-tips
in your charge, [partly to FRAYNE] while I
escort Lady Owbridge and Mrs. Jack to view this new
biblical picture—­[with a gesture]
a few doors up. What is the subject?—­Moses
in the Bulrushes. [To FRAYNE.] Come with us,
Chick.

SOPHY.

It’s not quite two, my lord; if you like, you’ve
just time to run in next door and have your palm read.

QUEX.

My palm—?

SOPHY.

By this extraordinary palmist everybody is talking
about—­Valma.

QUEX.

[Pleasantly.] One of these fortune-telling
fellows, eh? [Shaking his head.] I prefer the
gipsy on Epsom race-course.

SOPHY.

[Under her breath.] Oh, indeed! [Curtly.]
Please take a seat.

[She flounces up to the desk and busies herself
there vindictively.

FRAYNE.

[To QUEX.] Who’s that gal? what’s
her name?

QUEX.

Fullgarney; a protegee of the Edens. Her father
was bailiff to old Mr.
Eden, at their place in Norfolk.

FRAYNE.

Rather alluring—­eh, what?

QUEX.

[Wincing.] Don’t, Chick!

FRAYNE.

My dear Harry, it is perfectly proper, now that you
are affianced to Miss Eden, and have reformed all
that sort of thing—­it is perfectly proper
that you should no longer observe pretty women too
narrowly.

QUEX.

Obviously.

FRAYNE.

But do bear in mind that your old friend is not so
pledged. Recollect that I have been stuck
for the last eight years, with intervals of leave,
on the West Coast of Africa, nursing malaria—­